3 things that thousands of authors want AI makers to do in an open letter

Around 8,500 authors of fiction, non-fiction, and poetry from around the world have signed an open letter addressed to AI makers. The open letter urges the tech companies behind large language models like ChatGPT, Bard, LLaMa and others not to use their writings without permission or compensation. The Authors Guild‘s Open Letter to Generative AI Leaders calls on the CEOs of OpenAI, Alphabet, Meta, Stability AI, and IBM to obtain consent, credit, and fairly compensate writers for the use of copyrighted materials in training AI.
“These technologies mimic and regurgitate our language, stories, style, and ideas. Millions of copyrighted books, articles, essays, and poetry provide the ‘food’ for AI systems, endless meals for which there has been no bill,” the letter reads. “As a result of embedding our writings in your systems, generative AI threatens to damage our profession by flooding the market with mediocre, machine-written books, stories, and journalism based on our work,” it goes on to add. The list of signatories includes Jennifer Egan, Nora Roberts, Jodi Picoult, Louise Erdrich, Michael Chabon, Suzanne Collins, Margaret Atwood, Viet Thanh Nguyen, and more.
The letter has three important tasks for the companies and asks them to do the following:
1. Obtain permission for use of our copyrighted material in your generative AI programs.
2. Compensate writers fairly for the past and ongoing use of our works in your generative AI programs.
3. Compensate writers fairly for the use of our works in AI output, whether or not the outputs are infringing under current law.